The state swimming and diving championship meet gets rolling Friday morning and both Los Alamos Hilltopper teams will be represented.
Los Alamos has 24 entries scheduled to compete on the girls side this weekend and 12 more on the boys side.
The state championship meet will start Friday morning and continues through Saturday. The meet will once again be hosted by the Albuquerque Academy Chargers.
Preliminary diving competition starts at 8:30 a.m. Friday and swimming prelims will start at 3 p.m. Friday.
Los Alamos’ girls will head into the meet off their District 1 championship showing last weekend. The Hilltopper girls grabbed 411.50 points, cruising to the district title — only runner-up Santa Fe finished within 130 points of Los Alamos’ total.
Individually, four Hilltopper girls grabbed district titles with Monica Clodius earning two wins, in the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly. Ashlynn Bennett, a freshman, picked up a 500 freestyle title and Amy Neal won the girls diving championship to cap a solid regular season.
On the boys side, Los Alamos’ Chris Calhoun is among the team’s top-seeded swimmers. Calhoun is set to take part in both the longer freestyle events.
Los Alamos finished as the runner-up behind St. Michael’s in the district meet last week. The Hilltoppers garnered 356 points while St. Michael’s earned 440 points. No other team had more than 232 points.
Both Hilltopper teams have their work cut out for them to knock off Albuquerque Academy. Academy’s boys are the five-time defending state champions and the Charger girls have won five of the last six state titles.
The Chargers have 20 titles in school history. Los Alamos, which still owns the record for most consecutive victories — nine, those coming between 1976-1984 — had its record of 18 state titles snapped by the Chargers two years ago. The Hilltoppers are the only team to have beaten the Chargers in state competition since 2000, with victories in 2004 and 2005.
Academy’s girls, who have won a total of 14 state titles, can tie Los Alamos’ record of 15 titles with a win this weekend. Los Alamos, which won a record seven straight championships between 1976-1982, last won the crown in 2004.
Here are Los Alamos’ entries into the state championship swimming and diving meets along with seed mark (top seed in each event is noted in parentheses):